Cats make it look all too easy against tired Eagles

By Rohan Connolly

25 September 2011 — 12:00am

IT SAYS enough about how early this game was decided that the biggest cheer of the entire final quarter came not for anything happening on the field, but the re-emergence of an injured player from the rooms.

Not that Steve Johnson is just any player. The Geelong forward wizard's recovery from what looked a serious knee injury will be the subject of much debate this week. But his walk along the boundary line in the red substitute's jacket was of far more significance than anything that happened once Geelong officially killed off any hope of a contest from West Coast with the first three goals of the second half.

Heavy blow ... Geelong's Steve Johnson is helped from the field after suffering a knee injury but he later emerged from the rooms.Credit:Sebastian Costanzo

That blew the margin out to 44 points and had a nice symbolic component with Matthew Stokes finishing off a chain of handballs after West Coast's Scott Selwood had dithered, was caught red-handed, and the Cats pounced on the counter-attack. That was pretty much the profile of their respective sides yesterday - Geelong hard at it, focused, intense; the Eagles a little away with the pixies, looking happy enough just to have been there.

That was the official death knell but in truth it might have come as early as midway through the first quarter. By then the Cats had banged four goals through to none. Their pressure had reduced normally good users of the ball to fumbling, error-prone liabilities. And even a 26-point lead at that stage probably didn't do Geelong's dominance justice.

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At that point, the Cats had entered their forward 50 on 11 occasions to the Eagles' four. They'd almost doubled them for contested ball. And West Coast's defence was not just under attack but facing an absolute bombardment. West Coast normally restricts opposition forward entries to comfortably less than 50, but they'd conceded 22 by quarter-time.

Key parts of the machine like Matt Priddis and Dean Cox couldn't get going. When the Eagles did manage to work the ball within scoring range, it came flying back again at speed courtesy of the impassable wall that was the Geelong defence, magnificently marshalled by Matthew Scarlett, Andrew Mackie, Corey Enright and Harry Taylor.

Most things were going to have to go right for West Coast to pull off a major upset. Instead, Geelong ensured they went wrong. Crucially, it limited early the influence of Priddis, who continued to grit his teeth and have a go, but with his team already dead and buried, leaving too much in the lap of a tireless but overworked Daniel Kerr.

The young Eagle was superb again in a finals series that has been the making of him, leading the hit-outs, winning the most clearances for his side, and with 15 of his 18 disposals contested. But Geelong pair Brad Ottens and Trent West had him just about cooked by the end.

West Coast's forest of talls has had rave reviews all year, but it was Geelong's tall timber which loomed far larger yesterday. Tom Hawkins and James Podsiadly, a constant threat any time the ball headed their way, scored five goals between them which probably should have been at least seven or eight.